[Ads-l] "Foo" in More on Earliest Evidence of "Kilroy"

[Hugo]

> Fred and others,

> What does research say about dating "Foo"?

> Joel


Here's something I wrote about "foo" five years ago, mainly on its use
as a "metasyntactic" (or example/placeholder) variable in computing
(others are bar, baz, qux):

http://english.stackexchange.com/a/34566/9001

To summarise:

 * "Foo" and "bar" as metasyntactic variables were popularised by MIT
and DEC, the first references are in work on LISP and PDP-1 and
Project MAC from 1964 onwards.

 * Many of these people were in MIT's Tech Model Railroad Club, where
we find the first documented use of "foo" in tech circles in 1959 (and
a variant in 1958).

 * Both "foo" and "bar" (and even "baz") were well known in popular
culture, especially from Smokey Stover and Pogo comics, which will
have been read by many TMRC members.

 * Also, it seems likely the military FUBAR contributed to their popularity.

Hugo

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